Page 3 of Miss Understanding

Even if he did forget, I probably needed to apologize for my outburst. But walking in there right now wasn’t an option. It would be selfish to make it about me and my need to ensure my job was safe. After the terrible news, he’d need a moment to absorb. He also needed time to speak with his mom. Knowing him, he’d probably take charge of making the funeral arrangements. I imagined he’d have to go home, wherever that was, in order to be with his family, and I’d offer to help with the travel logistics.

Oh, God. But what about the deposition? We’d have to postpone. Surely, they’d give an extension for a situation such as this.

As my mind wandered about what this next week would hold, the clipping of heels snapped me out of my thoughts. Looking over, I saw it was Tabitha Owings, another partner with the firm. I suspected she had the hots for my boss given the way she eye fucked him any time they shared a room.

“Tell Liam I’m here to see him.” No please, no smile, no niceties. I bet she treated her shoes better than the staff.

She was a beautiful woman, probably in her late thirties, but her coldness toward anyone who wasn’t a partner was legendary around this place. She and my boss were a match made in asshole heaven. Normally I wouldn’t hesitate to buzz him, in order to get her out of my hair, but today I had to make an exception. I had to play the unhappy and underappreciated role of gatekeeper.

“Unfortunately, now isn’t a good time.”

Her newly injected lips made a weird duck-faced pout. “I checked his calendar, and he has nothing booked for the next half hour.”

“Something came up.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss—”

Just then Liam’s office door opened, and we both turned to see him standing in the frame.

“Hello, Tabitha,” he said.

Her mouth curved into a seductive smile. “Liam. I came by to discuss the Maynard file, but your secretary tells me it’s not a good time.”

I hated the way she said secretary. Only in a law firm did they seem to keep this title. Outside the legal world, most other firms had evolved to calling the position an assistant. But Tabitha took it a step further. She used the word secretary as if to remind me I was in a law firm caste system where I should be executing a curtsey and emptying her bed pan. Yeah, so I had a very active imagination sometimes, but the point was she was condescending.

Forgetting about her for a moment, I studied my boss’s face. He didn’t look any different than before his mother’s phone call. No red eyes, no ashen expression. No visible worries at all. It was as if his mother hadn’t told him mere minutes ago that his father had died.

“Ms. Tate is mistaken. Now is fine. Come in, Tabitha.” His ice-blue eyes only flickered to me briefly before he ushered her into his office.

Gatekeeping was such a thankless job.

She was in there thirty minutes before strutting out in her four-inch, red-bottomed shoes. She wore a smug look on her face. For all I knew, she’d just blown him in his office. Honestly, if it put him in a better mood, I wasn’t sure I cared.

“Ms. Tate, my office,” came the devil’s voice from behind me.

Cue the dreadful music. My gently worn black flats were soundless on the carpeted floor as I walked into his office, wondering if it would be for the last time.

Chapter Three

Liam

I’d sat there motionless for a full five minutes after I’d hung up the phone. My mother had cried, shrieked, and then finally calmed down enough to tell me how my father had died. Aneurysm. Quick and probably painless. Not the way I would’ve picked for him to go.

What should one feel for a father who’d abandoned him as a child? For a father who, before he’d done so, had been a raging alcoholic who liked to use his cruel words as well as his fists on his wife and children? The best thing he could’ve done was leave when I was eight years old. But then once he had, my mother had been forced to work two jobs while we relied on government assistance to help put food on the table.

For twenty-four years he was out of our lives without a word. Then, six months ago, he’d showed up on my mother’s doorstep and begged forgiveness. Evidently, he’d found Jesus, been sober for over a year, and was looking for redemption. More like a roof over his head with a woman to cook his meals. My mom had happily fit the role despite strong advisement against it from her two adult children.

I didn’t often entertain emotions, but repressed hatred toward the man had bubbled up unexpectedly with the phone call. Now that he’d died, she expected me to come home and pay my respects—as if we’d been a happy family all along. I couldn’t do it. Not for him. No matter how much she’d insisted he’d changed. Or how many times he’d called me over the last few months, wanting to make amends.

But I would travel home for her. Because despite the fact I now lived over two thousand miles away and had a very full plate at work, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for the woman who’d sacrificed everything to raise me and my older sister. With one exception: forgiving the man whose actions were unforgivable.

I thunked my head down on my desk. This was not what I needed, now of all times. I should call Kendall back in to sort through logistics. But first I’d have to internalize everything as I often did, especially around her.

Although I suspected my assistant may want a friendlier work relationship, it couldn’t happen. I didn’t do emotional attachments at work. Hell, I hardly did them at all. This method had served me well; after all, I’d become the youngest equity partner in the history of Lowry and Anderson. Now with the goal of becoming a named partner for the firm, I couldn’t afford to have anything get in the way.

It was easier to keep my distance, both emotionally and physically, if I simply treated her in a professional manner, possibly erring on the side of being cool toward her. I’d thought she might be just as indifferent to me as I was to her up until the point she had to go and tell me to pick up the fucking phone.